Korg AX10B

As everything on this unit is on dials, it it very easy to get to grips with.

I used this with a Carlsbro bass combo amp, a Steinberger five-string and a Gibson Thunderbird Studio. It is incredibly noisy, so much so, I found it unusable. The effects are cheap and comparable with the truly awful Zoom multi-effects units I have used in the past. I bought this as Korg multi-effects are used by Les Claypool of Primus; I can only assume the old Korg multieffects unit he uses is completely different to this one. I am not happy with any of the effects from this unit.

Although it looks solid in pictures, it feels like a toy. I was always careful when using it. I wouldn't use this on a gig, not because it feels flimsy (as I don't generally jump on equipment for fun), just because it sounds rubbish.

I play everything from pop to classic rock to thrash metal. This is basically a toy - you can't get a pro sound out of this unit, just some 'fun' sounds for pratting about with. I found playing around with the sounds while playing slap-bass to be fun, but only for five minutes. I have recently sold it and put the money towards a Boss GT-6B which was worth every penny.

It's quite easy to edit a patch, just read what the knob says and twist it to the wished position. You can just make the new patch with new settings you like in about 5 minutes, and you'll have a great patch. Just click the write button, choose a bank where to save, and push write again. The manual is easy to read. I had to read it twice, and look some things up again, but that might be just me reading over some things.

All in all a stable 8.

I'm using it with an Ibanez GSR200BK-L bass and a Hartke 210XL speaker, and a Hartke HA4000 amp. I used to have a ****** setup, with a Stagg bass and a 20W Stagg amp. The AX10B made my sound sound way better. Since I have the new bass and amp, I'm backing off from it. Totally hate the clean sound now. The distortion isn't that fully, so it sounds quite empty and blocky. On a lot of settings this thing hisses like a freak. About the clean sound again, I made this great EQ-settings on my amp and bass, when plugging the bass directly into the amp. Pulling the cable out of the amp, into the AX10B, and from there directly in my amp, pushing on the patch for clean sound (none of the effects on, regular EQ). Oh my god, this thing just throws my punchy sound away. I have an advanced EQ on my amp, so I can get this warm low-end, and also keeping a nice poppy treble in it. So it was just 100% great for fingerstyling and slapping to. Just had to tweak one knob a bit to change the sound a bit. With the AX10B between it, it just went lost. Like some of the sound for just have fun with the first time I used it. But now we're about 6 months later, I don't really like the effects anymore. This was my first effectspedal.
My first opinion was; wow.
But now; no.
Don't do it for the price, don't do it for the effects; they're too bad for even the "low"-price.

I'll give the sound a 5, just because you can get your bad setup sound better, but your nice setup sound bad.

Well, I wish it was made of steel. This thing is made of plastic. No way to gig it without a backup. The knobs are loose-feeling, the switches are from plastic. Only the sides are made of light steel. The expression pedal seems to be ok, but what's around doesn't. Mine is still as new, but that's because I've just rehearsed with it for about 12 hours, and never gigged with it. Just for practice it's ok.

Again a 5.

Never had to deal with them.

I mostly play rock. A lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers.
A combination of rock, punk, funk, ballads and sometimes a metal song. It will match well, has a lot of wished effects. BUT, again, the sound isn't good, so you've got nothing if you use this. You have some amateurish sounds. I play bass since november/december 2007. Have had an ODB-3 on loan, as well as a Q-Tron+. But I'll get a Zoom B2.1U later this week. As already said, playing on an Ibanez GSR200BK-L and Hartke 210XL speaker with a Hartke HA4000 amp. If it were stolen or lost, I wouldn't buy it again, but I'll buy the Zoom B2.1U. I love the possibilities and wide range of sounds it has. But neither of all really works, so for the same reason I hate it. When I wanted to buy this, in first place I wanted the AX5B, but the local guy only had the AX10B, so I bought that one. It seemed cool to me, because it had all the effects. I wish it had the sounds I was hoping for. So it doesn't really help me getting my favorite sound, and I desperately need the Zoom B2.1U thing, heard a lot of good things about it, now it's my time to test it. Hopefully that works.

For me, this thing doesn't do what it has to do.
So this will be a 4.

Twist a few knobs, push a few buttons and pringo baby! It's so easy to use you would have to be completely retarded not to figure it out within half an hour.
I've only had it for a few days and am yet to play around with the editing patches.
The manual is really helpful. Read it once, play with the AX10B for a while, read the bits you've missed and you have it mastered.
Do I know the firmware revision number? No.

Q. Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they?
A. Like I said I've only had it a few days so am yet to try to achieve replicated sounds of my favourite artists.

Q. Are certain effects (distortion, chorus, ...) very good? Very bad?
A. The distortion is ok, not great, but it scrapes by as a pass. The chorus is good. Uvibe is good fun. Most of the effects are great for what it's worth.

Q. What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with?
A. Yamaha 4 string bass. Merlin 50w 15" speaker amp.

Q. Is it noisy? On what settings?
A. A few of the settings do make it hissy and noisy.

Q. Are the effects weak or do they always sound great?
A. Some of the effects can sound a bit weak but generally ok.

Q. Can you depend on it?
A. I wouldn't give it too much gusto, the knobs are really cheap feeling and wouldn't have a long life span. The pedal feels reasonably sturdy under my foot, but again, I wouldn't like to give it too much. It's really light and all plastic except the bass plate which is made of thin sheet metal or something of the like.

Q. Would you use it on a gig without a backup?
A. No freakin way!

Had it for 2 days. But give me a couple of weeks and I'll probably be able to fill in this section.

Q. What style of music do you play? Is this a good match?
A. I play alternative/rock etc. I think it is not not a pretty good but bad match not. :-) Yeah it seems ok.

Q. How long have you been playing? What other gear do you own?
A. Been playing for about 3 years. Also own Alvarez 4 string and Fender 15b. 4 track recorder (tape). Bits and bobs.

Q. If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else?
A. Ok it was wierd enough you asking me what other gear I own as I thought this was all about the AX10B and maybe you wanted to come to my house, kick my dog and steal my gear if I tell you I have anything good. NOW you're asking if (by some chance...) it were stolen (ummm..) would I replace it? Checking to see how the dosh situation is eh? What else might I have laying around my flat huh? Maybe stuff that could go missing when my gear gets stolen yeah?

Ok enough crap. A solid 7.5 for me.

I didn't think it was easy to use. But it's poor quality didn't help I never even used the editing patches. Manual stinks.

The sound quality was disgusting. I have an incredible rig. This thing was awful/ It is noisy and hissy. The effects are very weak; some are decent, but 75 of the 80 are horrible.

I used it with a Thunderfunk 420 and a Raezer Edge Bass 12 400 cabinet. It made a Zoom pedal sound decent. This Korg thing rots.

I doubt it is reliable. It's made of thin plastic.

I bought it through MF.

Worthless junk.

Already covered, no need to list again.

A monkey could use it.

The two button dance can a little hard to do on stage...I got enough to worry about my licks and play in tune, I don't need to keep balance because I need two feet to mute the thing...so application for live use is kinda limited for me.

I was not expecting much since I got that just to be able to practice using effets without taking out the whole pedal board...boy was I in for a suprise!!!

This little plastic box has a sound quality that is amazing for the price. Ok, the amps don't really sound like the real thing but it does sound very good and it is a full truck load of different tones in one small box.

Like all electronic simulation stuff...if you want an Ampeg SVT, go buy one, not the AX10B. If you want something that kinda sounds like an Ampeg, it's in there but of course you won't have the projection a real Ampeg has so know what you are buying and have reasonnable expectations.

This little box could actually even be used for real studio work...but you might have a hard time convincing the sound engineer before he hears it.

The effects are not vintage pedals but they are very usable and actually sound better than some real pedals. The phaser is a little harsh and could use more tweaking options. The chorus is lush and honestly impressive. The octaver is a little cheesy so use with moderation, it's not a Japan Boss Octaver. I LOVE the univibe, if you close your eyes it almost sounds like the real thing!!!

As for Reverbs...too many to comment, some good, some ok, some terrible (plate..heurk...I can't beleive they let that pass quality control!!) but the spring reverb is good sounding but again, nothing beats a real fender spring reverb.

Too soon to tell, I've had this unit for two days.

All plastic so a stage might not be the best place to be for this multi-effect.

The expression pedal looks kinda flimsy but should hold ok unless you stomp on it like Flea on his pedals.

Hmm...I did not know Korg still had such a thing.

Who cares about customer support when you never need it. For me, that is is the best customer support ever!!

In short:
-Cheap
-Usefull
-Sounds good
-Good effects overall
-Even usable for studio work
-Korg reliability

All in all, a keeper. Hey, you can even hook headphones for hotel room practice so there is no excuse not having one!!

For value, quality vs cost, it sure beats any Boss multi-effects board.

This pedal's really easy to use straight out of the box. It comes with 40 preset programs and then there's room to store 40 of your own which, at factory default are an exact copy of the preset ones. Editing programs is very hands-on. Twiddle the knobs, push the buttons and follow your ears. The more you get used to it, the more you'll find out the sounds you like.

As with most of Korg's stuff of late, the manual is very clear and useful. Some of the more in-depth features of the pedal that aren't immediately obvious will become clear after reading the manual. It's short and concise so it won't take long to read it all.

This thing obviously has some sort of software in it to control the hardware but versions? I couldn't possibly say.

The AX-10B is a dedicated effects pedal for bass guitar (which still hasn't stopped me trying it with keyboards to great effect!) but in terms of bass it definitely sounds better if in stereo. Using a mono jack through a large amplifier, the reverbs have a tendency to sound a touch on the muddy side. The delays are cool, as is the distortion and filter which makes the bass sound a but like an analogue synthesizer.

I won't pretend to know about different amplifiers and cabinets but the AX-10B gives you a choice of 11 different cabinet and speaker models which drastically alter the sound character. Whether they're accurate or not I don't know but they do sound good. There's also a compressor that emphasises the attack of the sound, and you can adjust the bass, mid and treble.

At the moment I either run the processor directly through my hi-fi or if I'm feeling in a noisy mood I run it in dual-stereo through two Peavey KB-100 keyboard combos which sounds really cool.

The pedal lets you combine four effects types in sequence of pre-effect, amp type, modulation and finally ambience. The pre-effects cover compression, distortion and octave, while the modulation and ambience cover reverbs, delays, chorus, phaser, rotary and the like. For bass my favourite effects are probably the chorus and rotary effects, and, used sparingly the reverbs can sound good but work better with keyboards at a higher pitch. The filter effect works well to change the character of the sound of the bass but it also works well with keyboards because you can adjust the volume control on the keyboard to get a real-time filter sweep effect.

For particularly noisy inputs, a noise reduction function is provided which works okay but on the maximum setting you will lose any long decay tails. The noise gate kicks in as soon as the input signal ends but if you're using say a delay, once the input signal has ended the delay tail has no noise in it at all.

Unfortunately unlike pedals such as the Boss ME-50 (which is more money), the AX-10B is a plastic body. It's fairly weightly and feels pretty sturdy, and there is a metal baseplate on the bottom but I wouldn't like to put too much force on the expression pedal in a live situation just in case it gave way. This is probably more suited to the recording or studio bassist rather than the live performer. When I bought mine the expression pedal felt overly stiff and therefore subtle control of the effects was difficult.
I also bemoan the lack of a proper power switch. The power comes on when a jack is plugged into the input if using batteries, and if plugged into the mains (with an adapter you have to buy separately) the power is always on.

Never spoken to Korg with technical issues

I play mainly progressive rock/experimental stuff these days. The very fact that I am running keyboard rigs through this pedal as well as basses suggest that and this board really has potential for craziness and sound-moshing!

Current duration playing bass: 15 months
Current duration playing keyboard: 17 years

I think if I lost it or it got nicked I'd perhaps go for a slightly higher budget model like maybe the Boss ME-50 or Korg's own AX-1000G. They're not dedicated to bass but effects are effects. Many of the effects on the AX-10B work just as well on a normal lead guitar. The good thing about the AX-10B is it's pretty small and, if using with keyboards, sits well on the top panel and the pedal can be controlled with the hand.

Love: Phat filter sweeps I can do in realtime with the volume control on synths, cool amp models to drastically alter the tone character, thick chorus and wicked delays that I can have all active at the same time.
Not so much a hate but dislike: no power on switch
Wish: Full metal body